A film by Richard Lester
This is a wonderful surreal comedy based on the play by Spike Milligan and John Antrobus.
Michael Hordern is Bules Martin, who wears a 18-carat Hovis bread ring. Spike Milligan is a postman who wanders around and delivers some memorable dialogue, for example: "And in come the three bears - the daddy bear said, 'Who's been sleeping in my porridge?' - and the mummy bear said, 'that's no porridge, that was my wife' ".
My thanks go out to Robert Dahl from the U.S. of A who beat me (not literally) on ebay to buy this charity programme, only to send it me as a gift when he did! Fantastic! Robert is a huge Rita Tushingham fan, so if anyone visiting the site has any photos of Rita could they please email them to me and I'll send them on to Robert. Thanks. And now some more pages...
Some Reviews It's still good after all these years. We found a VHS copy! Watched it recently, and still laughed out loud, even though nuclear annihilation is not much of a hot topic. I would still highly recommend it for anyone searching for dark humor, sort of Monty-Python style An absurdist classic This is a wonderful surreal comedy based on the play by Spike Milligan and John Antrobus. You know that it is going to be an odd film right at the beginning, when the opening credits list the cast in order of their height. The film begins with the BBC (Frank Thornton) telling us through the facade of an old television that this is the third, or is it the fourth?, anniversary of the shortest war in history, lasting 2 hours and 28 minutes. England is now a barren landscape, littered with derelict cars and buildings, hills of old boots, broken crockery, and other debris. Forty million people perished and there are only 20 known survivors. The Queen did not survive, and of the 20 known survivors the next in line for the throne is a Mrs Ethel Schroake of 393a High Street, Leytonstone. Among the other survivors are Ralph Richardson (O Lucky Man!) as Lord Fortnum of Alamein, who isn't looking forward to his impending mutation into a bed sitting room. Michael Hordern is Bules Martin, who wears a 18-carat Hovis bread ring. Spike Milligan is a postman who wanders around and delivers some memorable dialogue, for example: "And in come the three bears - the daddy bear said, 'Who's been sleeping in my porridge?' - and the mummy bear said, 'that's no porridge, that was my wife' ". Arthur Lowe is slowly turning into a parrot (which is then eaten by Spike Milligan), while his wife, the owner of her own death certificate, turns into a wardrobe. His daughter is pregnant with a strange creature, which she has held inside her for seventeen months. Peter Cook and Dudley Moore are a pair of policemen who perpetually tell the others to "keep moving!". Moore growls a lot and turns into a dog at the end. Marty Feldman is a wellington-boot-wearing nurse. It's a hilarious, absurdist treat, and one of my treasured filmic pleasures. A British El Topo This is a visually stunning, funny, brilliant, and extravagantly weird film that should best be compared to El Topo, Barbarella, Playtime, and the Cremaster series. It's the kind of movie made with a big studio budget and free artistic reign; a combination that existed in other late 60s and early 70s bombs that have become cult classics. I saw it in 1969 and will never forget it. The cast was a fine cross section of the best Pommie comedy actors of the period. Too Funny, too Underrated For some strange reason, I recorded this movie one afternoon when it aired and my brother still has it on tape. Hilarious. Ralph Richardson, MIcheal HOrdern, Dudley Moore and Peter cooke were incredibly funny, but Mona Washburne as Mother had us laughing mostly, such as when nurse marty Feldman informed her she had died while she was still very much alive. "Well, you can't argue with it. There it is in black and white." and especially when she was throwing the dishes and was called a 'slut'. "Get out of here, ya slut." too funny! Rita Tushingham gets a bit irritating as the youthful voice of reason, possibly what hurts this movie most, but Peter Cooke's dialogue is priceless. Absolutely priceless. Then of course, we have to pay homage to our Royal Family. Or as close as we can get. Mrs. Ethel Stronk, was it?
Plot, visuals, script all equally disrupted by nuclear war- but an oddly touching black comedy! Buried in the sheer oddity and downright perversity of the humour there is a deep pathos. People of all classes from Lord to lunatic try through activities and language to cling to a civilization represented by heaps of objects. The horrors of holocaust are tempered by humour arising mainly from the ridiculous pretensions of the cast. Every mainstay of British middle and upper class culture has been made absurd - some of the characters are busy mutating into absurd objects - a bed sitting room, a wardrobe, a parrot. The humour is zany, the one-liners often mixing double entendre, understatement and naievity with real pathos. Arthur Lowe as the pompous father, Mona Washbourne as the all-sympathetic mother can bring a lump to the throat. memorable and poignant futuristic farce Some far thinking person at our new state of the art Village Twin Cinema decided to run The Bed Sitting Room and 2001: A Space Oddyssey as a double bill here in the very early '70's. That's where I first saw both and they have been locked in my consciousness as equally great and poignant comments on the "future". In one we get to boldly explore space, the other has us desperately rummaging in our own refuse to survive. Lester, lookin' good Pilloried in the decade that was His Time, Richard Lester had radishes thrown at him for being "modish," gimmicky, aggressively hip. (The great Manny Farber was uncharacteristically cruel, cruel.) He may seem in some lights like the Austin Powers of auteurs, but time has been kind both to his formal gifts (as magnificent as Nicolas Roeg's--or David Fincher's) and to the complicated, unsentimental, but hard-beating heart at the center of his movies. At least one Lester work, 1968's PETULIA, ranks among the greatest movies ever made. This little-seen classic, a sort of British-seaside ENDGAME, gets my vote as the most thrillingly beautiful end-of-the-world movie ever. Up with Lester! A piece that has impacted me throughout my life This is a movie that has followed me all throughout my life even though I have only watched it one time approx. 22 years ago. The classic British humor in this prepared me to enjoy other comedy such as Monty Python Ambitious black comedy One of the two outstanding black, apocalyptic science fiction comedies -- DR. STRANGELOVE is the other. This one's got it's flaws, but it has more than its share of virtues, too, especially in the area of creativity. The Channel 4 Film Review After a nuclear war that lasted two minutes, 28 seconds, a group of motley survivors reading like a Who's Who of British comedy talent - Lowe, Washbourne, Tushingham et al. - are leading a precarious existence on a rubble heap, travelling around London and mutating into household objects ... Bizarre? Surreal? Only what you'd expect from that top comic loon - Spike Milligan (the script is adapted from the play jointly written by himself and John Antrobus). Pete and Dud join in the mayhem along with the magnificently arrayed all-star cast. An inspired piece of madness which, strangely, has improved with age. Cast overview, first billed only:
Rita Tushingham .... Penelope
Ralph Richardson .... Lord Fortnum of Alamein
Peter Cook .... Inspector
Harry Secombe .... Shelter Man
| ||
